Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), or Teflon® is a polymer of fluorinated ethylene and was discovered by Roy J. Plunkett of DuPont in 1938 and introduced as a commercial product in 1946. It is a thermoplastic fluoropolymer.
PTFE has the lowest coefficient of friction of any known solid material. It is used as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware. PTFE is very non-reactive, and so is often used in containers and pipework for reactive chemicals. Its melting point varies between 260° C. (FEP) and 327° C. (PTFE), depending on which specific Teflon polymer is being discussed.
Amongst many other industrial applications, PTFE is used to coat certain types of hardened, armour-piercing bullets, so as to reduce the amount of wear on the firearm's rifling. Additionally PTFE is an excellent electrical insulator with good dielectric properties. This is especially true at high radio frequencies, making it eminently suitable for use as an insulator in cables and connector assemblies and as a material for printed circuit boards. Combined with its high melting temperature this makes it the material of choice as a high performance substitute for the weaker and more meltable polyethylene that is commonly used in low-cost applications.
Due to its low friction, it is used for applications where sliding action of parts is needed: bearings, bushings, gears, slide plates, etc. In these applications it performs significantly better than nylon and acetal; it is comparable with UHMWPE, although UHMWPE resists wear better than teflon.
The ubiquitous use of PTFE in industry makes it a prime material candidate for a variety of applications where the PTFE comprises some or all of a surface. One of the drawbacks to using PTFE as surface is that very few materials are known to bind to it making modification of the PTFE surface difficult.
Peptides having a binding affinity to polymer and plastic surfaces are known. For example, Adey et al., (Gene 156:27-31 (1995)) describe peptides that bind to polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride surfaces. Additionally, peptides that bind to polyurethane (Murray et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0098524), polyethylene terephthalate (O'Brien et al., copending and commonly owned U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0054752), and polystyrene, polyurethane, polycarbonate, and Polytetrafluoroethylene (Grinstaff et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0185870) have been reported. However, the use of such peptides to target PTFE surfaces has not been described.
There remains a need therefore for a peptide based reagent that binds PTFE that offers flexibility in bring a wide variety of materials to the PTFE surface with minimum investment in redesign. Applicants have solved the stated problem by providing peptide reagents comprising PTFE binding peptides (PTFEBP). The PTFE binding peptides of the invention may be modified with other functional or binding peptides allowing for the delivery of benefit agents to the PTFE surface or for the use of the reagents to adhere PTFE containing surfaces.